North Carolina’s Stephanie Peacock picked up this year right where she left off the last, swimming a 15:37.06 in the women’s 1650 at the Ohio State Invitational Sunday to break her own NCAA record. The old mark was set at the NCAA championships last year in 15:38.79 when Peacock upended Georgia’s Wendy Trott to keep her from a fourth-straight title.
This swim is the 4th-best mile swim in history at any level, though just the second best on the weekend after high schooler Katie Ledecky swam a 15:28 at nationals on Saturday.
Peacock started out splitting a :55, then was :57′s through the 500 and then dipped down into :56′s. That’s much sooner than she dropped down in her previous record-breaking swim.
This was Peacock’s first mile swim of the season and only the 6th of her career in yards.
The top 3 in that race were all under 16:00. Behind Peacock were Florida freshman Jessica Thielmann in 15:52.34, and Florida junior Alicia Mathieu in 15:59.32. Both of those times would have A finaled at NCAAs last year.
pelton also broke the american record at georgia
Congrats to her! And records continue to be broken.